In the wake of the New York and Colorado primaries, Democrats are ostensibly thrilled by their burgeoning “big tent,” a platitude that is the new favorite slogan from the party’s latest round of talking points.
With the Senate primary in Michigan still needing to occur, and now a new Senate candidate needed in Maine, observers are wondering whether the Democrats will stand firm on the growing trend of socialist candidates within their party.
Congressional leaders such as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) say they are welcoming these insurgent leftist candidates with open arms. This all begs the question: Do Democrats actually know what a “big tent” is in American politics? And perhaps more importantly, do they know how to stand one up?
By turning away from the promise of the “American dream” and embracing socialism, Democrats might very well lose more voters than they gain in the name of trying to expand their party’s base.
No current segment of the population knows more about the corrosive effects of socialism and communism than the Hispanic people. Socialism, both as an ideology and politically, is on the decline in Latin America.
The most relevant example of capitalism re-emerging in this region is by Argentinian president Javier Milei, who has transformed the country and stabilized its economy in short order. He did this by embracing what he calls “‘anarcho-capitalist’ tactics,” such as dramatically slowing the printing of money in order to bring down inflation, balancing the budget, and privatizing much of the country’s industry.
The Trump administration was also able to successfully remove former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and extradite him to the United States to face narco-terrorism charges. For Venezuelan expats living in the U.S., this was, by and large, viewed as a victory for human rights and democracy within their home country. Perhaps this is why Democrats were so silent after Maduro’s capture, knowing that they could not applaud President Donald Trump, yet they did not want to alienate more members of the Hispanic community.
If one is to believe the latest release from Republican pollster McLaughlin & Associates, Republicans are now leading among Hispanic voters, 48% to 43%. Even if this poll is somewhat off and the Democrats are slightly ahead with Hispanics, it still spells danger for their party.
In 2024, Trump received the greatest percentage of the Hispanic vote ever for his party, at roughly 48% of their total vote. The coup de grâce came in Starr County, Texas, which has the highest percentage of Hispanic-Americans in the country. They went decisively for Trump with 58% of the vote. This was the first time a Republican won in this Texas border county since 1892. To give some perspective on how much Republicans have grown their own tent in the last decade or so, Barack Obama won Starr County with 86% of the vote in 2012.
With socialist candidates talking about eliminating all pretenses of a southern border, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and emptying prisons, it is increasingly difficult to see a path back for Democrats to win Hispanics in large enough numbers to get the margins that they need to win in a national election year.
Perhaps just as importantly, socialist candidates and their supporters have myopically focused on any support of Israel as the current litmus test for being part of their movement. How far left a politician might be from a policy perspective on any other issue seems to matter little these days.
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), who was the lead counsel in Trump’s first impeachment trial and is one of his harshest critics in Congress, was just voted out of office in his own primary by this radical left-wing fringe. His obvious sin was that he didn’t disavow Israel throughout his four years as a congressman.
Trump won roughly 33% of the Jewish-American vote in the 2024 election, the highest percentage in any of his three national elections, and the most of any Republican candidate since George H.W. Bush in 1988. In New York, Trump garnered about 46% of the overall Jewish vote. This is staggering, considering that Joe Biden won almost 70% of the Jewish vote in New York in 2020.
With Democrats’ newfound hatred of any politician or person who shows support for the Jewish state of Israel, does anyone believe that Democrats will get a higher percentage of the Jewish vote in the coming national election cycles?
No less an authority than liberal comedian and political commentator Bill Maher just announced to Vice President JD Vance on his show three weeks ago that his “vote is in play” in 2028 for Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio. This is due to the outlandish policy positions that these socialist candidates are staking out, including their rabid antisemitism.
The only issue that these so-called “big tent” Democrats and socialist candidates are seemingly united by is their shared disdain for the current occupant of the White House. Whether or not someone dislikes Trump should be irrelevant. That is neither a political position nor is it something to use as an underlying ideology.
In the run-up to the 2024 election, while appearing on his show, Jon Stewart called out vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) for announcing Dick Cheney’s endorsement at the vice presidential debate as a show of the Democratic ticket’s strength. Walz fell back on the “big tent” talking point, but Stewart rightly pointed out that Cheney’s policy positions should be incompatible with those of the Democratic Party.
MAMDANI’S SOCIALISTS WROTE A NEW PLATFORM. I’VE READ IT BEFORE — IN RUSSIAN
If there is only one lesson to take away from the last 10-plus years of Trump dominating the political landscape, it is that a party does not grow its voter base by betraying its core political tenets to win elections. Rather, it is persuading skeptics to your side based on a set of overarching ideas and beliefs to create a new majority.
Perhaps once establishment Democrats find the courage to stake out clear positions to the right of these socialist insurgents, they’ll learn the most important lesson of creating the “big tent.” Kicking people out of the tent who don’t belong will make room for a more meaningful crowd to start gathering in it.
Terence O’Neill is chief revenue officer and a principal at Walden Lang Capitol Box, a New Jersey-based manufacturing firm. He holds a bachelor’s in political science from Gettysburg College and an MBA from Pace University’s Lubin School of Business. He lives in Pearl River, New York, with his wife and two daughters.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
